G2a3b1a2g

News for G2a3b1a2g persons

Because your subgroup is relatively small, you must rely on your overall mother group -- L 497 -- for most news.

Within the 1000 Genomes Project last fall I was able to extract perhaps about 100 SNP mutations found in five L497 men. Some of these are SNPs shared by all L497 men. There were an unusual number of these. suggesting that the L497 group existed as a small group for perhaps a millennium or more before a big expansion began. Within all these SNPs are probably 10 to 20 that represent valid branches of the L497 subgroup. We would like to have all of these available for testing, but Family Tree DNA will only provide tests that meet multiple criteria, and we were only able to get tests for Z725 and Z1901which likely only represent fairly small L497 subgroups. We will continue to try to see that promising SNPs in this resource would be turned into tests. If we can get these new SNPs as tests it will really accelerate progress in defining the movements of your L497 ancestors.

L497 samples outside of Europe continue to be almost unheard of. We were particularly interested last year in a sample from the island of Lemnos off the western coast of Turkey. This island has known connections to the Etruscans. This sample did turn out to be L497+ though it has some very eccentric marker values. And a researcher found a sample with similar marker values from the west coast of Turkey that is also L497 -- the only Turkish sample of this category in his collection. The question remains open whether whether these men are from an early branch of L497. If so, this could argue for an early movement from the Turkish coast to Europe in conjunction with the Etruscans.

This year we added a new feature to the G web site that deals with the L497 subgroup.

The purpose was to estimate the number of L497 men as a percentage in the population based on marker values. This is an imperfect way to do this, but many of these sites do not have L497 testing, and this is the best we can do in the meantime.

We have divided your G2a3b1a2g subgroup into 2 sections:

(1) those confirmed DYS594=11

(2) those only predicted DYS594=11

For those of you already tested for DYS594 we cannot recommend any further testing for you at this time. However, we will continue to look at ways to subdivide you.

For those of you who have not tested for DYS594, your help in having this test would be appreciated. It only costs $7.20.-- a bargain. An exception must be made for those who have relatives with the same surname in the confirmed DYS594=11 category. Only one person within related men with the same surname needs to test since all will have the same result.

As mentioned in the general news section, if you are willing to better define your grouping, I will be glad to give individual recommendations and help. rayhbanks@cox.net.